The Star Child
by Dariodevil
Summary: The end of a world... and the beginning of a legend.


While mankind was still meagerly cobbling together what could barely pass for civilization, over thirty light years away was a planet that had all ready mastered genetics. The inhabitants called this planet Krypton.  
  
Orbiting the red dwarf star Rao, named after the preeminent god of light from their first civilized era, the Kryptonians had slowly abandoned religion as the generations passed, embracing science wholeheartedly as their creed. Their last full-scale war was one fought over science, not religion, as the practice of harvesting clones of individuals for medical purposes was debated fiercely, to the point of sabotage and terrorism.  
  
It was during this time that the renegade terrorist group, Black Zero, sentenced the entire planet and all of its people to death. An Argonian geokinetic device had been detonated, an alien weapon on a planet that rejected all things not created within itself, and had malfunctioned, as well. Unknown to its people, a twisted terraforming pulse had been sent to the core of Krypton, tearing through its layers like an invisible sword, and cut straight to the heart of the world.  
  
Generations passed before anyone even knew what was to happen. In that time, the planet Krypton evolved into a world of one trillion cold, emotionless beings - people without souls. Physical contact was strictly prohibited. Each individual remained within their designated spire, of which countless structures of a crystalline material known as grahu rose up from Krypton's icy surface. Each individual was clothed in a suit that covered their entire body, black, with only a sort of cape as decoration. Each cape, covering both sides, front and back, of each individual, containing heiroglyphics describing of each individual's family, or House. Males wore green, women violet. The native Kryptonians, while appearing much like the people of Earth, had none of their heart, none of their emotion. Each man and woman was bald, hair being decreed superfluous long ago, males' suits covering all but their faces, with women wearing a headdress unique to each House. While all their skins were pale, their eyes were blue.  
  
Science was the god of Krypton. Their society had evolved into information gatherers and processors. Their children were born not of physical communion, but within birthing matrixes in gestation chambers, thousands upon thousands in rows. Each child was the product of pre-selected combinations, with the parents having their genetic material collected by robots and manipulated, creating their heirs in artificial wombs. The birthing matrixes were essentially bionic eggs. The children were incubated, born, then immediately placed in isolation, where they would be programmed with all of the knowledge and information of their respective House, over a course of twenty years.  
  
Such was always the way, it seemed. The people of Krypton went about their lives, refusing to even leave their planet. They deemed their planet to be not the center of the universe, but certainly its mecca. They certainly wouldn't consider the actions of a rogue faction generations ago to have any bearing on their planet now. They'd mastered all they surveyed. They controlled the weather, the wildlife, every form of life down to its most basic molecule.  
  
"My son." said Jor of the House of El. One of thirty-eight molium, members of the Science Council of Krypton, its only governing body, Jor-El had recently been branded a heretic. He did not care, however. If he could not save his world, he would save his son.  
  
The gestation chamber went on as far as the eye could see. Jor-El was standing aboard a hovering platform, staring at one birthing matrix in particular. The material within had barely become a fetus, at this point. It was his son. He knew this, because every Kryptonian's first offspring is a male. It was controlled.  
  
Jor-El stared at the matrix, his own reflection being all he could see. He found himself unable to look into his own eyes. For some reason, he also found himself reaching out to touch the matrix. He found himself wanting to hold his child.  
  
He decided he would name the child, before they were seperated forever. His House, the House of El, translated to "House of the Stars" in an earlier Kryptonian dialect. His child would be "Kal," meaning child. Jor-El's son would be the Star Child, and he would be the Last Son of Krypton.  
  
Time on Krypton is measured slightly differently than it is on Earth, but there exists enough similarities to draw parallels. For example, a second, as it is known on Earth, is called a thrib on Krypton. One hundred thribo - the plural of thrib - equal one dendar. One hundred dendaro equalled one wolu. Ten woluo make up one zetyar, or solar rotation.  
  
It had been six woluo, and all ready more than a quarter of Krypton's population was dead. It was an unknown cancer, one the Kryptonian people had no preparation for whatsoever. While the Science Council studied the incoming data feverishly, millions upon millions of people died, horribly, their bodies withering into green husks. There was no warning. There was no source. There was no cure.  
  
Jor-El knew of the cancer, as he had all ready discovered it. He knew, somehow he had always known, he simply wasn't aware of it. All his life on Krypton, he had yearned for something more, something he could no describe. He studied the data of other planets, and found himself imagining life on these planets. He studied their cultures, their art, their history. Jor-El was known as a great scientist and engineer, and he had recreated an invention from Krypton's past. The hyperdrive.  
  
His original plan was to create a craft that would house thousands. If mass- produced, his people could leave Krypton, and explore other worlds, perhaps find what it was Jor-El felt they had lost, though he himself could not define it. When the cancer first struck, he changed his plans for a much smaller ship, one to hold himself, his lifemate, and his unborn child.  
  
There was no time. All Jor-El could do was save his son's life. After being branded a heretic by the Science Council for questioning their logic and authority after they denied his proposal for the people of Krypton to escape the cancer within the confines of the Phantom Zone, another dimension he had discovered long before, the Council found itself overwhelmed with trying to rationalize thousands of unexplained deaths each minute. The cancer was destroying them, but that wasn't all. Jor-El knew the truth about the cancer, and he knew the fate of Krypton.  
  
Enacting an ancient law that hasn't been invoked in centuries, Jor-El ordered his unborn child's birthing matrix delivered to his spire immediately. As the robots bore the silver orb, he was tempted to take it into his own hands - why? It didn't make sense to him, but his thoughts rarely did. Despite being a scientist, Jor-El was at times, very illogical. He found himself more and more illogical by the second.  
  
As the birthing matrix was placed within a structure designed by Jor-El himself, the tremors began. Built by the House of El's robots, the structure was shaped like the ancient Kryptonian symbol for a star - a sphere surrounded by dozens of spikes, pointing outward. The star itself contained a hyperdrive, an engine capable of exceeding the speed of light, and traversing the vast gulf of space by bending it. Within the star was Kal-El - the Star Child. Jor-El had studied as many worlds as he could, in the short span of time he knew he had, and decided he found the perfect world for his son.  
  
The Star Child would be sent to Earth.  
  
"Jor-El," a voice stated, flatly. The scientist knew who it was, even though he had never heard that voice before in his life. It was his lifemate, Lara.  
  
Jor-El turned to see his lifemate for the first time, the woman he was arranged by the Science Council to be linked to, to procreate with, and to further the House of El. She approached him, entering his spire. It was the first time either of them had contact with another Kryptonian in person. It was the first time any Kryptonian had contact with another in many generations, and it was the last time, as well.  
  
"Lara," he said. He began walking towards her, and she froze. He studied her. He found her appealing somehow, just as the first time he saw her holographic projection.  
  
"You removed the matrix of our child from the gestation chambers," she said. "Why?"  
  
"Am I not entitled to do so if I wish?" he responded. "I am the child's father. By law, I have the right to remove him."  
  
"You speak of a law that has not been invoked for countless revolutions," she said. "Why do you invoke it now?"  
  
Lara walked past him now, walking towards the Star Child. She gazed at the structure, the mass of crystals and chromium. She turned to her lifemate.  
  
"Has this plague that has beset the world robbed you of your sanity, as the Science Council has decreed?" she said. "Is this why you endanger the life of our heir?"  
  
"Endanger.?" Jor-El said, in disbelief. He approached her. He seemed compelled to touch her. He didn't understand why. They kept a distance from one another.  
  
"I would never endanger my child, Lara. I seek the opposite. I seek to provide him a life, an escape from the certain death that awaits the world."  
  
"What.?" Lara said, taken aback. "What are you speaking of? Even now the Science Council and the Houses of Ur and Ze work tirelessly on a cure for the plague. Within mere waruo."  
  
"Krypton will be destroyed," Jor-El interrupted. "I have been studying the plague, as well. Eons ago, during the Clone Rights War, anarchists attempted to use a weapon of Argo and failed. This weapon sent a geokinetic signal to the center of the world itself, causing a chain reaction. Over countless solar revolutions, vast terraformic pressures have built within the planet's crust."  
  
Another tremor had begun. Jor-El approached the Star Child, as it was completed. Lara's eyes were now focused on him.  
  
"Those unnatural pressures are fusing the native elements into a new, radioactive metal," he continued. "This radiation is the plague that has been killing us, Lara. Simoultaneously, the internal pressure will soon be too much for the world's mantle to contain."  
  
Lara's face slowly melted into a look of horor.  
  
"You are mad," she finally said. "Jor-El, you believe."  
  
"Yes," he interrupted. "I believe the world will explode."  
  
The surface of Krypton was a desolate, silent sheet of white, with countless crystalline towers that covered their landscape for as long as modern history existed. The grahu spires, as they were known, could withstand any and all conditions. However, even the perfect tower must fall when the land beneath it gives way. The tremors that had actually begun long ago, and were now manifesting themselves, began to shake and tear at the foundations of the spires.  
  
Lara looked at Jor-El, her face riddled with fear. The earth quakes beneath them. Could Jor-El have been correct, somehow? She didn't understand how it was possible. They were the masters of the world, their people. It didn't rain, unless they permitted it. Now their own world would destroy them.  
  
"Jor-El," she started to say, trying to mask her fear, "you. you honestly believe.?"  
  
"I do," he said, coldly. He felt something inside of him, an unpleasant feeling. He didn't understand what it was. Another tremor snapped him out of another deep torrent of thought.  
  
"Perhaps it is fitting, Lara. We controlled the world, we harvested every natural resource, manipulated and outright abused every single part of it. why? What have we gained?"  
  
Jor-El approached Lara now. He felt within him something else, not all together unpleasant, as the prior feeling.  
  
"We are a dead people," he said, "and we died long ago. We have no souls, no humanity, no passion. We have violated the gift of life itself."  
  
"You speak obscenities!" Lara interrupted, raising her voice for the first time in her life. She stepped away from Jor-El, frightened. "What is this madness? This heresy? What are you going to do with our heir?!"  
  
Jor-El walked toward a nearby console, and activated the holographic projector.  
  
"I seek to give him life."  
  
The foundation of all Lara knew fell apart in an instant, as the holographic images surrounded her. She and her lifemate were no longer within his spire, along with the Star Child. They were within a simulation of another planet.  
  
"The inhabitants call it Earth," he said. She gazed around, seeing endless, flat terrain, of a strange green nature. The sun was bizarre, yellow. In the distance, she saw humanoid beings, like herself. but savages, clad in odd fabrics, exposing their flesh to the air, their hands to dirt and soil. they were not men, they were like ancient beasts of burden. Lara was appalled.  
  
"Jor-El!" she cried, again, her voice no longer calm and controlled. "What kind of lowly world do you seek to send our son into?!" Jor-El deactivated the images, returning the two to the world Lara knew. As if the world itself knew, another tremor began, this one longer than the last few.  
  
"Under the yellow star this 'Earth' orbits," he explained, "our child will be born and raised. He will grow, his unique physiology mutating, transforming him into a living solar battery. His body and his mind will unite, and will give him powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men."  
  
Lara gazed at the Star Child, which was completed. Jor-El approached the craft, and began the launch sequence.  
  
"Then, he will rule them?" she asked. "He will tame these Earth creatures, show them the proper way of life?"  
  
"Perhaps," he said, turning to her. He felt another unpleasant feeling, as she did not seem to understand his intent. He quickly brushed those feelings away. He found himself looking into her eyes more and more, as the tremors became stronger and stronger.  
  
"Jor-El, is there no other way.?" she began to ask, when the tower itself began to shake violently.  
  
"No, Lara, there is no time for anything at all. Only our child can hope to save the legacy of all that was once great in the world. And perhaps. he may create a legacy of his own."  
  
The Star Child's launch sequence was complete, and it began its ascent up, up, and away, towards the top of the tower, and out into the heavens.  
  
As the tower began shaking more, as Lara's eyes nervously darted around them to see the grahu structure itself start to crack, her lifemate approached. She looked into his eyes, and, even if given eons, would never be able to describe what she saw.  
  
"Lara." he began, "from the moment I was first shown your holographic image, and told your seed and mine would be mingled in the birthing matrix, I have felt an unknown stirring within my body."  
  
He came closer. For some reason, as the world ended around them, she was not afraid.  
  
"The world has not had a place for this sensation, not in countless generations, but I have studied well the habits of these Earthian men, and I have learned from them an understanding of what I. feel."  
  
"Jor-El. what are.?"  
  
"Lara," he began, taking off his hood to reveal a full head of dark hair, graying on the sides, with a spit curl. "Even though we die, I am content, so long as we die together."  
  
He reached out, slowly, and she stared at him, quivering, as the tower itself started to shatter. What was he doing? She was frozen in indecision and fear. He removed her headdress, revealing her own bald head. His fingers caressed the side of her head, to her cheeks, as he moved closer. Her fear began to melt, as the tower began to crumble around them.  
  
"I love you," he said, as he put his mouth on hers, and closed his eyes. She did not understand, yet somehow, it felt right. She closed her eyes, and as Jor-El and Lara performed what is known on Earth as a "kiss," the tower fell, and they died in one another's arms.  
  
The Star Child shattered the barrier at the very top of Jor-El's tower, gaining speed as it broke through the stratosphere. Beneath the spacecraft, and the unborn fetus within it, the surface of Krypton violently shattered, as waves of green energy tore through everything.  
  
Amidst the chaos of a world's end and the deaths of one trillion people, the planet Krypton erupted into countless fragments. A split-second before entering hyperspace, a small piece of the green metal hit one of the spikes on the craft, fusing to it with intense pressure and heat.  
  
The Star Child entered hyperspace with its radioactive stowaway, escaping the planet Krypton's fiery emerald apocalypse faster than a speeding bullet. 


End file.
